London/Madrid : Europe will not make the most of its multi-billion euro clean energy investments until old monopolies are broken up or made to build the dozens of power links needed to manage the rise of wind power.
Billions have been spent installing wind farms across Europe over the last decade in an effort to reduce energy sector emissions of climate-warming carbon, with Denmark and Spain already producing over half of their power at times from it.
Much slower progress has been made on building the infrastructure needed to share the green power around because there is no incentive for grid operators run by power generators to open doors to competitors.
"There are a lot of business cases out there for more links but because of these historically determined structural deficiencies it's very difficult to convince the other side that it's a good idea," European Wind Energy Association chief executive Christian Kjaer said.
"If you have a vertically integrated power company you are not making decisions on building an interconnector based on whether that makes economic sense... I blame the politicians for not treating transmission systems for what they are, which is natural monopolies."
Frustrated
France and Germany in particular have frustrated European Union attempts to break up national energy champions, but faced with new, as yet unenforced European Union law, regional monopolies in Germany have started selling their grid arms which should spur investment.
However, independent Spanish electricity network operator Red Electrica has been pushing for over a decade to lay more lines across the Pyrenees to France as its home market bloats with wind.
French grid operator RTE — still held by state-controlled generator EDF — has shown less enthusiasm for cooperation.
The Iberian Peninsula remains isolated, causing REE regular headaches handling output from Europe's second-biggest collection of wind turbines.
